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So called the affordable 3D printer, the Form 1 Printer is capable of printing your design in three-dimensional form. With the high-end stereolithography technology, the Form 1 can construct details as small as 300 microns, and it is able print the object up to 4.9″ x 4.9″ x 6.5″ in size. The printer comes with Form Finish Kit, Form Software, and 1 liter of Formlabs Resin (material for the printing – just like printer ink). The product is now available for pre-order but only USA, Canada and EU. Priced at $3299. Check out the video after the break. Read more…

A $2,300 3D printer isn’t really anything special anymore. We’ve seen them as cheap as $350 in fact. But all those affordable units are of the extrusion variety — meaning they lay out molten plastic in layers. The FORM 1 opts for a method called stereolithography that blasts liquid plastic with a laser, causing the resin to cure. This is one of the most accurate methods of additive manufacturing, but also one of the most expensive thanks to the need for high-end optics, with units typically costing tens-of-thousands of dollars.

A group of recent grads from the MIT Media Lab have managed to replicate the process for a fraction of the cost and founded a company called Formlabs to deliver their innovations to the public. Like many other startups, the group turned to Kickstarter to get off the ground and easily passed its $100,000 within its first day. As of this writing over $250,000 had been pledged and the first 25 printers have already been claimed.

The FORM 1 is capable of creating objects with layers as thin as 25 microns — that’s 75 percent thinner than even the new Replicator 2. The company didn’t scrimp on design and polish to meet its affordability goals either. The base is a stylish brushed metal with the small build platform protected by an orange plastic shell. There’s even a companion software tool for simple model creation. You can still get one, though the price of entry is now $2,500, at the Kickstarter page.

In plenty of time for back to school shopping, Canon has added three new offerings to the PIXMA family. The company just uncovered the MG2220, MG3220 and MG4220 all-in-one printers. The trio boasts 4,800 x 2,400 dpi max resolution, FastFront for easy changing of both ink and paper via the face of the machine, borderless 4 x 6-inch prints in under a minute and handles up to 8.5 x 11 sizes.

With the MG2220, you can expect the advertised copy, print and scan functionality, while the other models each sport wireless capabilities. The aforementioned perk includes AirPrint, Google Cloud Print and Canon’s own Easy PhotoPrint mobile app. If that wasn’t enough, two new bits of software will be available with My Image Garden and you’ll gain access to Facebook galleries with Print Your Days.

The pricier pair also touts Auto Duplex printing to keep costs down and the MG4220 tacks on a 2.5-inch LCD for convenient adjustments for its higher price tag. The outfit didn’t offer any details on when these peripherals will hit shelves, but when the time arrives, you can expect prices of $69.99 for the MG2220, $79.99 for the MG3220 and $129.99 for the all-inclusive MG4220.

If you literally can’t wait until you get back home to print your Grand Canyon photos, you’re now in luck. Canon has announced the SELPHY CP900 compact printer that makes on-the-go postcard making a bit easier. Making use of the peripheral’s added WiFi capabilities, you’ll be able to output those images from you hiking expedition from a memory card or with the help of the Easy PhotoPrint app for Android and iOS devices. Of course, you’ll be limited to 4 x 6-inch snapshots, but the new accessory will take up less room in your backpack compared to the previous models. Can’t find a power outlet? No worries. You can splurge for the optional battery / charger combo for printing mid-safari — should you so choose. The device also sports a 2.7-inch LCD screen for final adjustments and a wait time of under a minute per copy. Details on a release date are scarce, but the mobile kit will be available in both black and white options for around $100 when it does arrive.

Let’s be honest — we all want a a 3D printer to call our own, right? Price has always been a significant barrier to the dream of printing pretty much everything your imagination can conjure (barring some hardware limitations, of course). For its part, MakerBot has made some significant strides toward tearing some of those barriers, and now Solidoodle, led by that company’s former COO Samuel Cervantes, is looking to take the trend even further. The company’s current self-tilted model starts at just under $500. The printer, which is now up for pre-order, can print plastic pieces up to 6″ x 6″ x 6″, and “all you need to supply is a computer and power.” Also, interestingly, “a 200-pound man can literally stand on top of the machine while it’s printing. ” So, that’s a bonus. Check out a video of the printer in action after the break. Read more…

Want to print stuff from your iPad, but hate drivers and cords and stuff? Good news, Canon’s offering up the Pixma MX512 and MX432, two all-in-one inkjets that offer up Apple AirPrint support, letting users wirelessly prints photos, docs and the like from their iPad, iPhone and iPod touches running iOS 4.2 or later. Canon also used the announcement to reaffirm its commitment to the technology, ensuring as before that it “will be available with the majority of Canon PIXMA Wireless All-In-One inkjet printers launched from this point forward.”

As far as scanners go, Doxie makes some of the more interesting products on the market. There’s one problem though… the bright trail of hot pint hearts splashed across the front. Thankfully, the upcoming Doxie Go dons a more conservative shell that will look just as at home in a CEO’s office as it would in a 16-year-old girl’s bedroom. The Go is a portable scanner with built-in memory for up to 6,000 pages, and you can even add on more storage through the USB port or SD slot. All scans are automatically fed through OCR software and turned into searchable PDFs. To get the scans on your PC you actually sync the Doxie Go to your Mac or Windows machine. You can also sync with your iPhone, iPad or send your documents straight to Dropbox, Evernote or Google Docs from the Doxie 2.0 desktop app. You can pre-order the Go now for $199 and it’ll start shipping in late November.

Say what you will about Hewlett-Packard’s consistently terrible corporate management and laughable failures in tablets and smartphones, HP still knows a thing or two about amazing peripherals. Witness the just-announced HP TopShot LaserJet Pro M275, an impressive web-connected printer/scanner that can scan 3D objects and still comes in at a reasonable $399.99. Of course this doesn’t mean the kind of 3D for which you probably spent way too much money on a 3DS. The function is intended to streamline the process of photographing objects and getting the images online, for people who make their living from boutique sites or on eBay.

The scanner works by using the camera mounted on the crane arm to take 6 individual images from different angles and exposure levels. Those photos are then combined into a single image that HP claims will be seamless. Pretty cool, but in addition to the whole “wow, it scans 3D images” thing, the HP TopShot will also come with some useful features, like apps for posting the images directly to online storage sites and auctions, and the ability to print directly from your smart phone or devices like iPad and iPod Touch. Scans are able to get up to 245 dpi, which isn’t bad unless you consider the HP TopShot prints up to 600 dpi. Assuming HP doesn’t experience yet another management shuffle that veers the whole company sideways, future incarnations will likely have higher quality scans.

The HP Topshot also has support for HP ePrint and AirPrint, connects to the internet without a computer and will also work on a wireless network. All in all it looks like a shockingly affordable gadget for small businesses. No release date has been announced though, so keep your fingers crossed this won’t go the way of Microsoft’s Courier tablet.

All these while photo filters only apply on cameras and software on the computer, but now Canon is going to bring it to the next level. Got a camera but does not have any effect filters? Don’t have a computer lying around, and want those photos printed out immediately? Not a problem. We’ve got the Canon PIXMA MG5320 Wireless All-In-One and iP4920 Inkjet Photo Printers.

For the PIXMA MG5320 Wireless All-In-One and iP4920 Inkjet Photo Printers, functionality is pretty straight forward, but the outfit’s hoping to reel you with the promise that the pair brings “creativity to a whole new level.” That “enhanced creativity” comes in the form of “Fun Filter Effects,” a set of elementary photo filters, like Fish-Eye and Toy Camera, and the ability to add soft focus and blur backgrounds.

What’s more, the MG5320 also allows you to print sans-PC from the company’s PIXMA Cloud Link. If fisheye functionality is enough to get your creative juices, and cash money, flowing, the iP4920 and MG5320 are now available for pre-order for $100 and $150 respectively.